SEXY SIXTIES - 'MY LIFE WAS A MESS - NOW I'M THE HAPPIEST I'VE BEEN'

LOOSE WOMEN'S DENISE WELCH REFLECTS ON THE PAST DECADE, OVERCOMING ADDICTION AND BEING FREE FROM DEPRESSION

- GEMMA MCCARTNEY

Denise Welch oozes confidence ahead of her 65th birthday as she gets glammed up to join us for her sexiest shoot yet – and doesn’t she look incredible?!

But confidence isn’t something that’s come naturally to the star. Just over 11 years ago, Denise Welch made a decision that changed her life forever. Waking up after a night out in London, she was hit with the sobering realisation that in a drunken stupor she’d pulled a door off its hinges and smashed a vase.

The morning after the night before, her now-husband Lincoln Townley was at the foot of her bed, presenting her with a video of her antics, which she couldn’t face watching. After years of binge-drinking, Denise knew she had to quit alcohol for good. That evening, Lincoln picked her up from the theatre where she was performing in Steel Magnolias. He had given up drinking two months earlier after Denise saw a side to him she didn’t like and ended things – he went teetotal to save their relationship.

“He drove back and told me how much he loved me, how much he worshipped me, how I was the woman for him, but it was going to be very difficult to move forward with me drinking,” she tells us.

“And he said, ‘In the future, if you ever have more than two glasses of wine, I’m going to leave you to it.’ I said, ‘I can’t do that to you. I said to you I can’t have that person coming through the door and I can’t be the person that comes through that door.’ And I’ve never had a drink since that night.”